Infusion
by joanhello
Summary: Wayne Scott, by faking his death, perpetrated a massive public fraud and the city's new hero is powerless to bring him to justice. So Roxanne will have to do it. Rated M for sex and language.
1. Chapter 1

Roxanne Ritchi had a tendency to get her way. Wayne Scott had thwarted her, refusing to help when Tighten was destroying the city, but she had not given up. She could be as persistent as her blue boyfriend, especially when it was his help she was counting on.

"No, Roxanne. It's too dangerous."

"You think if you give me those powers, I'll abuse them?"

"No, of course not. You're a truly good person, perhaps the best in the city."

"And that's why I want to do this. Come on. I want to bring one criminal to justice. One."

"One who has the same powers you want me to give you _and_ a few decades more experience in using them. Or did you think you'd be juggling babies the first week?"

"No, I know I'll need to practice, but remember, he's never faced anyone who has his powers. And even though he's not a hero anymore, I think he'll be careful not to hurt me. Old habits die hard."

"But a situation like this, where you'd both be facing opponents you've never before encountered, is exactly the kind of situation where accidents happen."

"Like the kind you run into every time you fight a new supervillain?"

"I'm the Defender of the City. It's my job."

"But you won't give yourself those powers."

"Argh! Listen, Roxanne. I don't want to go into the technical details, but the simple explanation is that homo sapiens is much closer to Metro Man's species than mine is. Infusing myself might not work, or it might work but with undesirable side effects, some of which could easily be irreversible. Just trust me on this; we don't want to go there."

"But you don't want to infuse anyone else, either."

"Look, right now the fact that infusion is possible, that an ordinary human can be given Metro Man's powers, is a secret known only to you, Minion and myself, and that is as widely as I want it known. If word of this got out into the genetic engineering community, there would be companies out there offering to sell infusion on the open market, and the world would have a new Tighten to deal with every week."

"Which means that I'm the only one who can do this, unless you can think of some other way of making Wayne pay for what he's done."

Megamind stood still with his eyes unfocused, wrinkling his forehead. Then he began to pace. By now she was used to seeing him do this when he was working on a problem, so she kept up with him as he moved around the no-longer-evil lair, muttering little fragments of ideas. "Tensile strength." A minute later. "Nanotubes. No, no, no, we tried that four years ago." Another minute. "Titanium." She watched for him to smile or speed up, which would be signs that he had the beginnings of an idea, but after a quarter of an hour he slowed down and eventually stopped.

"All right. There's no other way. But I insist on six months of full-time training. No less."

"You didn't give Hal six months of training."

"I only intended for Hal to fight me. You'll be going up against a far more formidable opponent."

"Okay. I'll arrange for a seven-month leave of absence from work."

"I'll prepare the infusion. And one more thing. Minion is not going to like this any more than I do, so I will leave you to explain it to him."

Minion did not like it, but this was one task that did not require his help. During the two weeks while they waited for Roxanne's leave to start, Megamind redesigned the infuser from a gun, intended for secretly infusing an unsuspecting person from a distance, to an inhaler that Roxanne could operate herself. She smiled as she used it, sitting on the couch in the lair, remembering bong hits during her brief days of illegal drug experimentation in college. The stuff tingled warmly in her lungs for a moment. Then she felt dizzy and tired and needed to lie down.

In the next four hours, nothing happened but a nap.

"Was this supposed to take this long?" She asked when Megamind and Minion came to check on her.

"No. I think with Hal Stewart it took less than two hours. Hmmm. Let's reconstruct what happened. He was hit by the infuser charge, then he lay on the sidewalk briefly. Then you drove him home and he staggered and stumbled up to his apartment and collapsed on the bed. We found him there and rather frightened him. He thought we were there to rob him. Minion hit him with the Forget-Me Stick and then he got closed up in that bed that folded up into the wall. That's when it happened."

"Okay," she said, "so inside the Murphy bed it was dark and there wasn't much air. Let's try that." At first they thought they'd just get all the bedding in the lair and pile it on top of her on the couch, but Minion reminded his boss that they could no longer just steal a new couch every time they ruined one. The fish himself had another idea.

"I've got a bolt of black satin in the the sewing nook. Why don't we try wrapping Ms. Ritchi up in that?"

He unrolled eight or ten feet of it on the floor, then had her step onto it, take hold of the two corners and hold them at about shoulder level. He lifted the bolt end up behind her and passed it over her to Megamind, who stood in front of her and brought it down to cover her head. Then the two aliens passed it back and forth around her, unrolling it as they went, wrapping her up like a mummy. It was dark in there, all right, and stuffy, and the fabric muffled the sounds around her. Then it started to get warm, and then it seemed hot enough to burn and there was a golden light that she could both see and feel, that roared in her ears. She felt a sudden spasm of energy burst through her; her head and arms tore through the fabric. The hot golden light and the roaring were gone. She could see again. Her blue boyfriend was still in front of her, but now she was looking down at him.

"It worked," he whispered. Minion brought up a full length mirror. Like his boss, he seemed shorter to her. The black satin wrapped around her like a long, tight-fitting gown. Her reflection had the figure of her dreams.

"No one will recognize me," she observed.

"Good," said Megamind. "We want deniability, both to keep the infusion technology secret and in case you have to get a little rough with Wayne."

"Try to fly," suggested Minion. She levitated while the satin unwound beneath her and the brainbots _bowg_ed in confusion. Once she was rid of the last of the black fabric, she tried a few turns in the air, some barrel rolls and a loop-the-loop. Then she flew under Destructo-saur, the biggest robot in the place. It took her a few tries to find its center of gravity, but once she did, lifting it was almost as easy as lifting just herself.

"She is magnificent!" exclaimed the blue hero. "Isn't she magnificent, Minion?"

"Sure is, boss. Way to go, Ms. Ritchi!"

When she tried to set it down, she misjudged and it crashed on its side, pieces flying in all directions from the force of the fall, while the two aliens dove for cover.

"I guess I do need some practice."

###

They started out having Roxanne crash through walls and other large objects, to get herself used to the impact. She practiced wrestling holds with dummies and caught raw eggs thrown by a specially equipped brainbot to develop her manual dexterity. Megamind reconstructed the supersecret superhero supersuit, but repainted it black so that he would be less visible using it at night. For the same reason, the costume Minion made for Roxanne was entirely black, with a mask that concealed half her face. She hadn't wanted a costume, but ordinary clothes tended to get torn up in the course of practice; only the specialized high-strength fabrics would withstand the hard use of superbattles. And she needed something to keep her hair out of her eyes.

"You'll never take me alive, copper!" Practice seemed to bring out the blue hero's suppressed villainous side. Suited up, struggling with Roxanne or fleeing from her across the night sky, he would call out banter that sounded less like Metro Man than like a 1930s gangster movie. The first time she apprehended him, she broke his right arm and two ribs. While he reinforced the suit for greater overall strength and resilience, not just powerful punches, she watched videos of Metro Man in action. In addition to the news coverage, Megamind had his own brainbot-recorded footage of all his battles with the superhero. By the time his broken bones healed, she felt much better prepared. She and Megamind contended in the air, on the pavement, indoors in darkness so that they had to depend on X-ray vision to find each other, and even underwater in the lake. In the beginning, he was often able to get away from her, and sometimes dawn would find him still fleeing, but as the months went by, she got better, to the point where she could defeat him a half-dozen times a night.

One evening after she'd helped work on the Invisible Car by pulling the entire engine out and holding it in the air for twenty minutes, Minion asked her if she was ever tempted to just stay superpowered. She shook her head.

"This body has no sex drive. I used to be amazed that Metro Man was such a gentleman around women, especially the fans who threw themselves at him. Now I know he just wasn't interested."

"That's very good to hear," said Megamind. "Although I recognize that you now conform much more closely to this society's conventional notions of female beauty, I found you much more attractive the other way. I am looking forward very much to the day when this is all over and you can be my beautiful Roxanne again."

"Me, too." She smiled and, very carefully, kissed him.

###

The six month mark. Roxanne landed outside the weathered old schoolhouse in the moonlight. With her X-ray vision she could see Wayne in the bathroom of the underground apartment, in a bathrobe, brushing his teeth. For a moment she considered tunneling down through the sand and bursting through the ceiling above him, but then she decided she wanted to be between him and his usual exit. She opened the door and floated in, being as quiet as possible, although she knew he was probably not paying attention enough to notice her entrance. She lifted up the trapdoor that led to the underground entrance to the apartment. Unlike the drafty building, the tunnel below her was weather-tight and it held a scent she'd never consciously noticed before. His scent.

Her sex drive woke up.

_The infusion didn't just give me his powers. It reoriented me sexually so that I don't respond to males of other species, only to his species. Which means only to him._ She knew her plan was dead in the water and she should just turn around, go home to the lair, defuse herself and forget all about this, but it was as if invisible cables were attached to her nipples and clitoris, pulling her down to where that man was, the only man in the world. Knowing it was the worst decision she'd ever made, she descended.

Looking through layers of walls, she could see him using the mouthwash, rinsing out his toothbrush, oblivious. She was inside the trophy-bedecked music room at the front before he looked up, alert. She opened the door on the other side of it, letting herself into his kitchen. At the far end of it was another hallway, with doors leading to the bathroom and bedroom. He darted through the bathroom door, then stood and faced her, his fists raised.

"Who are you?" he shouted. "What do you want?"

"It's Roxanne," she replied as she flew up to him, "and I want you." She kept her hands at her sides as she leaned in and kissed him. After a moment, he responded. They embraced and opened their mouths as if each had been starving for the other. Five or six minutes later, the bathrobe hit the floor. Her mask followed immediately, but the costume took a little longer because it was more complicated to get out of. Under it she wore only panties. He tore them away as he moved in to kiss her again. Then he lifted them both off the carpet and floated them into the bedroom. They settled onto the bed without breaking the kiss. There was a long, wordless interval of kissing and nuzzling and pressing their naked bodies together, long enough that she began to notice that he was taking a long time to get erect. Then she began to feel another, more literal kind of heat, the kind she associated with infusion. She had a moment to wonder what was happening and then it was on her, the golden light that washed out her vision, the roaring that filled her ears, the energy in every cell of her body. She still felt him against her, his arms around her, and now she could feel his erection form against her thigh. Blind and deaf, she mounted him by feel. From his first thrust, she felt the ripples of pleasure begin. Her climax was closer to literally burning than she had ever imagined possible, sweeping up her whole awareness in overwhelming sensation.

Then it was over. The bedroom was dark and quiet. She was lying on his chest, completely limp. She tried to use her X-ray vision to compensate for the lack of light, but it didn't work. She realized that she was a prisoner of gravity again, and she could feel the weight of his arms around her back in a way she hadn't felt any weight since her infusion. _So the light and noise I just felt was de-fusion._

Wayne's chest inflated under her before he spoke. "Are you okay, Roxie?"

"I'm not injured, but I am back to being a regular helpless human." She sat up. "My powers are gone."

No answer. The light was very dim, but it seemed to her that his outline against the sheet was smaller than the Metro Man she was used to.

"Are you okay?" she asks.

"I can't raise us off the bed. I can't see anything outside this room." He moved his head a little. "No laser vision."

She turned on the light. He was thinner, less tall, with narrower shoulders. More like the kind of man she was normally attracted to, except that he'd gone from being superhumanly buff to not really being in shape at all, though he wasn't really overweight. More like the typical figure for a man in early middle age. "You look like the human version of yourself," she said.

"What's going on, Roxie? How'd this happen? Why did you even have powers in the first place?"

"I talked Megamind into infusing me the way he infused Hal so I could come here and slap your face and have it mean something. I didn't expect to be crazy attracted to you like this. I certainly didn't expect to end up with both of us... depowered. But it's a Megamind plan, so of course something had to go wrong." She finds herself tearing up. "God, it's so hard for him to trust anyone. What will he do when he finds out I cheated on him with you?"

He put his hand up to the side of her face. She's seen that tender, sorrowful expression on his face only once before, when he carried the corpse of a little girl out of the ruins of a collapsed building and gave it to the parents, telling them he was sorry he couldn't save her. The memory put Roxanne's distress in perspective. Megamind might freak out. He might turn back to villainy, might even go on a rampage, but it wasn't certain. Nobody had died yet. Most likely nobody would die at all.

"We have to tell him," Wayne said, "because he's the only one who can figure this out."

The city's new hero didn't freak out or any of the other things Roxanne was afraid of. Instead, when they called him and explained what had happened (with Wayne adding "Congratulations, little buddy. You've finally found my weakness.") he burst into a laugh that recalled his villainous days. Then he insisted that they come to the lair "for testing. This is an unprecedented research opportunity. I'll send Minion to pick you up." Wayne was nervous about leaving his underground fortress, sharply aware of his new vulnerability. In a tee shirt that was now too big and a pair of sweat pants that strained at the waist, he flinched at the first touch of the outside air, even though it was only a little chilly. When they got in the Invisible Car, Minion stared at Wayne for a moment.

"Hi, Ms. Ritchi. Hi, Mr. Scott. Wow. If I didn't know it was you, I'd totally think you were somebody else."

In the lair's small infirmary, Minion weighed and measured Wayne and took samples of his blood, skin and hair while Megamind did the same with Roxanne. The ex-hero was fascinated by the sight of his own blood. Meanwhile, Roxanne took the opportunity to express the worry that had been haunting her ever since she went down the stairs to Wayne's fortress.

"Amnang," she whispered, using her blue lover's real name. "Do you hate me now?"

"For an involuntary act resulting from the response of your artificially altered biochemistry to previously unknown circumstances? Of course not. Why, my former prison mate, Psycho Delic, could emit an aphrodisiac gas from his own pores that would have total strangers going at each other."

"The lust bombings. I remember. But every lust bombing resulted in at least one divorce or broken engagement."

"Because humans are irrational and they don't understand how mechanical lust really is. I do value your intention of sexual fidelity to me, as an act of love, but I don't confuse physical fidelity with love itself. Is your heart still mine, or did one act of passion rearrange your loyalties?"

She smiled a little cynically. "One act of passion that's probably not repeatable. No, he's still the man who ran out on the city. Even if the feelings last after I get defused for good, I wouldn't trust him enough. Besides," she said as she leaned closer, "he's not you." Megamind was careful to put the needle down before they kissed.

After the taking of samples and measurements, Megamind went into the lab to study samples and run tests while Minion began entering data into what they still called the Metro Man database. Wayne and Roxanne watched the eleven o'clock news, which was recorded every night by the lair's video system, because the reporter wanted to see how her colleagues were getting along without her. It was into the football scores when the blue genius walked in with a request for Wayne's attention.

"To develop a decent hypothesis, I must ask a series of questions, very personal and intrusive questions. If you don't want Roxanne to hear the answers, she should leave now."

"Roxie can stay." He was reluctant to let her out of his sight, and barely restrained himself from holding onto her like a fearful toddler clinging to his mother.

"All right," said Megamind. "Tell me about your previous sexual experience."

"There isn't any. I was always afraid of hurting the other person. Besides, until now, I never had that much of a sex drive. When I kissed a girl, it was more because it was expected of me than because I wanted to."

"Any experiences with boys, transsexuals, livestock, anything that moves?"

"Even less. I was only under pressure to show an interest in girls."

"Any solitary experiences, masturbation, wet dreams, involuntary ejaculations?"

"Never."

"So this was not only your first sexual encounter with another person, it was your first orgasm ever."

"Yes."

"Now, when you defused - lost your powers - was that after you had an erection, or before?"

"I... Well, when this defusion thing happened, there were a lot of unfamiliar sensations: heat, light, noise, and sexual arousal. I know I got an erection, because when my eyesight came back enough that I could see what was going on, we were already fucking, but I can't tell you exactly when it started."

"So most of this sexual act took place during defusion?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, my. I'm afraid if you ever experience ordinary sex as the rest of us know it, you're going to be disappointed. Did you orgasm before the process was finished?"

"I think it was all over at once, the defusion and the sex. One minute I was in a state of insane lust with flames around the edges and a side dish of fear that I was hurting Roxie, or was about to hurt her, and wouldn't be able to stop myself. The next thing I knew we were both collapsed on the bed and for the first time in my life, I was exhausted."

"Hmm. All right then. Here is my hypothesis: your powers have the unfortunate side effect of making reproduction impossible, so when you find yourself alone with a potential mate, you temporarily lose them. Until I infused Roxanne, there was no one on Earth whom your body could recognize as a potential mate, so you never experienced it."

Suddenly Wayne was standing up, leaning forward. "Did you say temporarily?"

"Yes. All you should need to do is avoid Roxanne, or anyplace that has her scent, for anywhere from a few hours to several days, and you'll spontaneously regain your powers just as you spontaneously lost them."

"So wait," said Roxanne. "Does this mean that if I avoid him for that long, I could spontaneously reinfuse?"

"Oh. I didn't think of it, but yes. You should both, once you start avoiding each other, also avoid public places, in fact any place where you might draw unwanted attention by suddenly appearing to burst into flame."

"One more question," said Roxanne. "Is it possible that I'm pregnant?"

"Oh, I would definitely advise one of those morning after pills as soon as possible."

"Roxie." Wayne reached for her, though he was too far away to touch her. "One thing I always wanted to be and knew I could never be was a father. Now, though -"

Megamind interrupted. "Think about it, Wayne. A superpowered fetus in a human womb would be no danger until it started to kick. Then the mother would be at risk of serious injury to her spine and internal organs, not to mention the possibility that the fetus would rupture the amniotic sac and, in effect, abort itself." The former hero lowered his head, an expression of bitterness on his face. "I don't mean to increase your suffering," the blue man continued, "but the truth is less cruel in the end than false hope."

Wayne straightened up, composing himself. "You're right. I can handle this." He sounded like he was trying to convince himself. "I guess I'll go back to my place and wait."

"I suggest," added Megamind, "that you clean everything she has touched with a good strong-smelling disinfectant." Wayne didn't seem to hear. He stood there looking at Roxanne longingly.

"Goodbye, Wayne," she said. "I'm sorry...No, who am I kidding? I'm not sorry. That was the most amazing experience of my life and I'll never be sorry, but I..." She looked away, groping for words.

"Should I leave you two alone?" asked Megamind.

"No!" Roxanne was at her blue lover's side in an instant, taking his hand. "Wayne, I started this because I was angry, because I wanted you to suffer for what you did. Eleven people died in Tighten's final rampage, because you weren't there to stop him and Megamind didn't have enough experience at fighting someone who really wants to do harm. I wanted you to suffer because you betrayed the trust of the whole city for no reason but self-indulgence. You could have gone about this responsibly. You could have brought in a younger hero to take your place, but you didn't. You owe this city bigtime. But I, I didn't mean for it to come out this... personal."

"You're right," said Wayne, his eyes down. "I was negligent in not preparing the city for my retirement. I just left everybody to flounder." He looked up, met her eyes. "Can you forgive me?"

"Maybe," she answered. "Once you've made amends. I don't know what that will look like, but you're a smart guy. You'll figure it out."

He nodded. "I'll go," he said. "I'll think about it."

"I'll have Minion drive you home." Megamind touched his watch.

###

As soon as Wayne was out of the room, Roxanne let her head sink onto Megamind's shoulder. After a moment, he pulled her into an embrace. They just stood there for a long moment, holding each other. Then he pulled off one glove and began caressing her hair, as he often did. She sighed.

"I'm not as over this as I let him think I am," she whispered. "Part of me is still calling out to him, but it's better if he doesn't know that."

"Part of you may never be over this," he replied. "But if it makes you feel a little more secure, I was thinking that, after the whole story comes out (and I know you, Ms. Nosy Reporter; it will come out) I'll encourage him to pick out some young woman volunteer from among his diehard fans. There are a few who will always be loyal to him, no matter what he's done. I'll infuse her and leave her that way and they can live happily ever after."

"That would be good. I'm kind of scared of what I'm feeling now. I'm hoping I reinfuse and get defused for real and then it'll all be over."

###

When Wayne got back to his underground apartment, he found that he was in no hurry to remove her scent and get his powers back. Being there without her was painful. The longing was eating him alive, but strangely, he welcomed the pain and gave himself almost eagerly to the longing. He got into bed on the same sheet where they'd made love, feeling the pull of gravity, feeling her absence, thinking that he was finally part of the human race, thinking of her, thinking again and again of her. After a few sleepless hours, he got up, went into the music room and picked up his favorite electric guitar, feeling its true weight for the first time. He switched on the amp, tuned up, then turned on the drum machine and scrolled through its menu, looking for love songs. He was thinking of something wistful and yearning, something about beauty lost and unrecoverable, with metaphors about slipping through fingers and foolish mistakes. Then a title scrolled by. "The Boys of Summer" by Don Henley. Remembering it, he felt a kind of strength rising up through him, not the physical strength that had left him when he was in her arms, but strength of will. He clicked it, then stood back as it opened with the single drumstick tapping out that quick insistent rhythm.

He only made a few changes to the lyrics as he sang. The second verse in particular seemed almost like it was written for this situation.

_I never will forget that night.  
I wonder if it was a dream.  
Remember how you made me crazy.  
Remember how I made you scream.  
Now I don't understand what happened to our love,  
But, babe, I'm gonna get you back.  
I'm gonna show you what I'm made of._

I can see you,  
Your brown hair shining in the sun.  
I see you telling us the news,  
Smiling at everyone.  
I can tell you my love for you will still be strong  
After the boys of summer have gone.


	2. Chapter 2

For those not in the States: two-by-four lumber means boards cut to a profile of two inches (about 5 cm) by four inches (about 10 cm), then planed down for smoothness so it's actually a little less than that. Thick and sturdy, two-by-four is used a lot in construction. To give a person a clue-by-four means to do the emotional equivalent of driving information home by whacking the person on the head with a yard (meter) of two-by-four.

* * *

Roxanne bought a single-use douche kit on the way home from getting the morning-after pill at a local emergency room. She asked Minion to put her clothes through the wash as soon as she was out of them. In the bathroom, she put them outside the door, then brushed her teeth, douched, showered and shampooed, getting every trace of Wayne off her skin. In fresh sweats, she went up onto the roof of the Lair to breathe air with no residue of his scent and she waited.

The sky was getting light when she felt the transformation, the light and heat that produced a burning smell but left her clothes untouched. She came to herself standing with her arms outstretched to the pre-dawn sky. She felt the returned powers as a tension in her limbs which was nevertheless light and steady, like relaxation so complete that it had come out the other side as a kind of energy. In spite of her resolve to go straight downstairs and defuse herself, she couldn't resist rising into the sky above the city, gently at first, then with a thrill of speed that carried her all the way up into the sunlight that hadn't yet reached the top of Metro Tower.

Then she looked around. The most tempting of the powers for her had been the X-ray vision and super-hearing. The ability to snoop on anyone anywhere in the city was like candy to a nosy reporter. Not that much of a newsworthy character was going on at that hour. It was too late for burglary, too early for bribery. She might catch a respectably married official waking up in a brothel, but that was a little too tabloid for her taste. So she looked in on her relatives, friends and co-workers, making sure everybody was all right, holding the biggest temptation by the throat, reluctant to give in to it, equally reluctant to let go of it. Finally she succumbed: she turned her superpowered eyes toward Wayne's underground apartment. Immediately she regretted it.

He was masturbating. She supposed it was understandable. Just as she was enjoying one last flight before defusing herself for good, he was enjoying one last orgasm, possibly the last he'd ever know in his life. Suddenly she wanted to be done with all of it. She flew directly inside through the hologram wall, settled on the couch, put the defuser to her lips and pushed the button. It worked instantly.

She slept until nearly noon. When she woke up, she was in bed and her blue man was beside her, sitting up against the headboard with a keyboard on his lap and the "screen" projected from the wall above the bed onto the wall opposite, showing computer source code, incomprehensible to her. As soon as he felt her move, he shut it down, set the keyboard aside and turned to her, sliding down under the bedclothes until he was lying beside her. She was happy to discover that all her old feelings for him were back, tenderness and love and lust and aesthetic appreciation of his lean otherworldly beauty.

"How are you, my love?" he whispered.

"Horny but tired," she replied.

"Then just lie back and I will do all the work." He kissed her. "Such onerous work! How will I bear it?" He helped her out of her clothes and slid his bare skin against hers. Her responses from before her infusion were fully restored and he played them skillfully, in the end inspiring a little more energetic participation than she'd thought she had in her.

Afterward they got dressed and went upstairs to the kitchen for a snack. It seemed to her that everything was back to normal.

"Mr. Scott called, Ms. Ritchi" said Minion as they ate. "He wants you to call him as soon as you can. He says it's about amends." And her gut tightened up, as did something a little lower down, and she knew everything wasn't back to normal.

###

"Minion said you wanted me to call you."

"Yeah. I've been thinking about this amends thing. I went online and read about the eleven people you told me about, plus eight who were left permanently disabled. None of them come from very well-off families. I know that money won't make everything all right, but it could make a big difference. So I need access to my inheritance, and for that I need to be officially alive. So here's my idea..."

###

She picked him up in her car, a Datsun 240Z older than she was. (One thing she and Megamind had in common was an appreciation for vintage sports cars.) She refused to enter his apartment even though he hadn't cleansed it of her scent, so she wouldn't have re-contaminated it. She just didn't want to be near him when there was a bed handy. So she pulled up in front of the weathered schoolhouse and phoned him.

He came out wearing one of the suits he had custom made in Italy. He was still defused, so it hung on him; the cuffs were rolled up to keep them from flopping over his hands and the ends of his trouser legs were tucked into his socks. He had shaved and done his hair in his old style.

When he got in the car, there was a long moment when they looked into each other's eyes, and if either had made the first move, had leaned in just a little, they would have kissed and there's no telling what it would have lead to. Then Roxanne used the buttons on her door to roll down all the windows. The cold air broke the mood.

"Fasten your seatbelt," she said as she turned the key. "If I have to stop suddenly, you could get hurt."

###

"This is Roxanne Ritchi reporting from Police Headquarters, where a man previously believed to be dead is about to be identified by matching his fingerprints against those in the police database." She and Wayne stood on one side of a counter with a computer on it, wired to the specialized scanner that would take the prints. On the other side of the counter was Captain Tuomey, Roxanne's most frequent contact in the police department. Fingerprinting was usually done by a lower-ranking member of the force, but Tuomey insisted on being the policeman on camera. A cameraman from Channel 8 News stood filming at the end of the counter. Wayne put his fingers on the scanner, rolling his thumbs as the captain instructed. Tuomey typed for a moment, paused while the machine worked, and then his expression of smug professionalism changed to shock. He looked at Wayne.

"You can't be Metro Man!"

"I'm not Metro Man anymore, but I am Wayne Scott. It's kind of complicated, but the short version is that Megamind took the same technology he used to take Titan's powers away and used it to take my powers away because I refused to help him defeat Titan."

"What? You're saying that you were alive when Titan arose? And you still had your powers?"

"Yes. What you saw at the abandoned observatory was... acting. The skeleton was fake." The runaway hero looked and sounded contrite, even a little ashamed, but Roxanne didn't know how much to trust it. He'd fooled the whole city. How hard would it be to fool everyone again? "I convinced everyone I was dead and went into hiding. Roxie... I never did hear why you showed up."

"Megamind came to me after his first battle with Titan. He knew that Titan's powers were like Metro Man's and he wanted any information I could come up with on Metro Man in the hope of finding a weakness that Titan might also have. I was looking for that information. I never expected to find you alive. If I had, I certainly wouldn't expect that you'd refuse to help us. I still don't understand it." She found herself looking at him coldly as she said it.

He hung his head. "I didn't realize what it was going to be like for him," he replied. "I'd been battling Evil for so long, it had gotten so easy, I thought it would be that easy for him, too. I forgot how often I... well, I always won in the end, but when I was first starting out, there were casualties I failed to prevent because I was inexperienced. I didn't pay any attention to the battle with Titan, because I figured, now that Megamind was on the right side, defending the city instead of menacing it, there was no question that he'd win. So there were casualties he failed to prevent, that I could have prevented if I wasn't so... complacent. Then Roxie decided I needed the clue-by-four." He gave her a rueful smile. "It was your idea, wasn't it?"

Her first reaction was _Hey, who's the interviewer here?_ but then she remembered that she was part of this story, too, and it was a fair question. "Yeah. Megamind has been preoccupied with getting used to his new role, converting his more evil devices to good use, and stopping the kind of criminals who'll keep committing crimes if they aren't stopped. He wasn't expecting any more trouble from you, so he left you alone. I was the one who insisted on seeing justice done."

"In that case," said the captain, "Wayne Scott, formerly known as Metro Man, you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent..."

###

Few reporters have ever made a more spectacular comeback than Roxanne Ritchi. When she had started her leave of absence, she wasn't sure whether she was going to still have a job at the end of it. Some of the news show executives had argued that, since her relationship with Metro Man no longer brought the station a steady stream of exclusives, it was time to bring in a fresh new face, by which they meant a younger female newscaster who would have more appeal for the horndog segment of the viewing public. But now she was more popular than ever, and doubly so with every woman and teenage girl who'd ever had a man run out on her. The sharpest change was in the attitudes of those who had criticized her for her growing relationship with Megamind. If she had known since the days of Titan that Metro Man was alive and refusing to help in the city's hour of need, then her cavorting with his former rival seemed like no more than he deserved.

All this Roxanne learned from the storm surge of emails she got after the segment aired on the evening news. She had shut down her computer and was happily in bed with her blue beloved when the phone call came from the Metro County jail. So Minion handled it.

"You've got to come now!" pleaded a panicking police sergeant. "Metro Man's regained his powers! Please hurry! We can't stand against him!"

"Has he bent any bars?" asked the fish. "Has he broken through any walls? Used his laser vision? Anything?"

"We don't know. We've evacuated the whole wing of the jail. Please!"

"Look, Sergeant. Ms. Ritchi said he promised to stay put when she drove him to the station to turn himself in, so long as he was put in a cell by himself. You did give him his own cell, right?"

"Yes. Of course. We would have anyway, just for his own safety. But what if he changes his mind now that he has his powers back? There's no way we can hold him!"

Minion sighed patiently. "I'll send in a couple of brainbots." There was always a camera bot on patrol in the general vicinity of the jail, anyway. Minion sent a projector bot to join it. The two little cyborgs let themselves into the building and floated down the hall, past the trembling guards, to the cell where a reinfused Wayne was floating on his back in midair as though on a comfortable bed, in shirts sleeves, playing air guitar and looking smug. The camera bot rose to the ceiling just outside the cell and extended its lens through the bars toward him, while the projector bot sank to the floor, aimed its lens at the ceiling and showed him a video feed of Minion in the Lair's control center.

"Hey, Mr. Scott. Sounds like you got the staff all freaked out."

"Did I? Sorry. I had no control over it. You know, I have no idea what the process looks like from the outside. Must be pretty scary, huh?" The superpowered fingers continued to move up and down the imaginary guitar strings as he spoke.

"They just want you to reassure them that you're not going to use your powers to bust out."

"I'm not going anywhere. Although it would be nice if they could give me a mirror. I'm worried that the transformation mussed up my hair."

"Hmm. Tell you what. If you'll give me just one second, I'll send the signal from the camera bot directly to the projector bot and you can see yourself instead of my ugly mug."

"Don't put yourself down, Minion," Music Man replied as the mechanical hands worked over the controls. Abruptly, the image he saw overhead was his own, slightly off center. He twisted his head around to get a view from all sides, then floated to vertical to show the camera the top of his head. Satisfied that his hair was in acceptable shape, he returned to his prone position. "Thanks, buddy. That's all I needed."

"Don't mention it. Say, why don't I leave the bots where they are for the night? I'll put the feed from the camera bot through to one of the security screens at the front desk there, just to reassure the staff, and if you need anything, just speak up."

"Great. One more thing." The former hero hesitated a moment. "Roxie and your boss. How are they doing?"

The fish gave a suggestive smile. "Why do you think I'm handling this instead of him?"

###

"Too bad there wasn't a camera pointed at him when he re-infused, or a guard watching," Roxanne remarked when she heard about it over breakfast. The only witness to Wayne's regaining of his powers had been the prisoner in the cell across the hall, who was in for running a shell game; not exactly the picture of reliability.

"You think there are people out there who don't believe Wayne lost his powers?" replied Megamind.

"You should see some of the emails I've been getting. People who think I've been fooled, who want to help me by pointing out all the signs that the man who was arrested on camera yesterday was obviously an impostor, or the ones who think I'm in on it, that this whole story is some kind of hoax and Metro Man is really dead. It drives me nuts."

"Well, what if he defused someplace where there were a lot of witness, including a judge and a lawyer from the district attorney's office?"

"No way will they let you take the defuser gun into the courtroom."

"I wasn't thinking of the defuser gun. I was thinking of Eau de Roxanne, straight from the source."

###

The way Megamind looked at it, just because he was one of the good guys now, that didn't mean he needed to inform the authorities about everything he did, much less ask permission. Getting past the courthouse's security system was child's play for him, of course, as was the planting of tiny or sensors and cameras in every courtroom. He did these things in the dead of night, sending in brainbots to do all the courtrooms at once so as to complete the task without disturbing the guards on their rounds. What those sensors were there to measure was air movement. By the eve of Wayne's hearing (not a trial, because he had pled guilty, but a sentencing hearing), the blue genius had a complete map of the air flow in each courtroom to show to Roxanne.

"The ideal position would be directly behind him," the blue man explained as they leaned over the printouts, "but there's no telling where at the defendant's table he'll sit. So the next best is here," he tapped a red dot on each of the maps, "where your scent will be carried directly to the witness stand."

"Wouldn't it be easier if I just sit along the aisle so he'll smell me as he walks past?"

"Too quick. You want him in a place where he's got to be for at least a minute, preferably several. Better if he transforms when all eyes are on him, anyway."

###

They were both subpoenaed as witnesses, so they went to the courthouse together. The place was packed, but the crowds parted for the city's defender, and they got exactly the seats they wanted.

"You're sure adjusting to the hero privileges," she remarked once they were seated, seeing how he smirked and preened in response to the attention.

"Oh, yes. None of that noble false humility for moi," Megamind replied, putting a hand to his lightning-bolt-bedecked chest. "One of the reasons Wayne grew so tired of being a hero, in my not-at-all-humble opinion, is that he felt he had to suppress all evidence of even his minor flaws. I defend the city, but I have no intention of being anything other than what I am: a barely reformed supervillain, vain and egotistical and positively greedy for special treatment."

She was about to respond with a bit of suitable banter, but a very angry feminine voice spoke from behind them. "And I suppose you know all about his_ minor flaws_." They looked back to see a slender blond snarling at them.

Megamind's grin grew even wider. "One aspect of the Game we played that was generally not known to the public was the research aspect. I would evade the security system at Scott Mansion, fill the place with hidden cameras and microphones, and snoop until he noticed and destroyed them. Then he would upgrade the security system, which I would once again defeat." The grin turned a little sinister. "One of these days, if I get especially irritated with him, I shall release some of the more embarrassing selections. Let the whole world see what an oaf he can be when he thinks there's nobody watching." The blond continued to snarl, panting, getting worked up for an outburst, but then Roxanne, who happened to be facing the door at the back of the courtroom, saw the defendant being led in. She caught her breath at the sight of him, full-sized again, the Wayne she had known. He was still in the same suit, but it fit him now. He looked beautiful, and she'd never thought that about him before.

"There he is," she said, and the blond turned like a dog that hears the can opener. On his wrists were shackles, the kind that usually go on prisoners' ankles. She supposed no handcuffs would fit him. He looked straight ahead at the back of the detention officer leading him. Except for that officer, every person in the courtroom watched him. Another officer, behind him, used a billy club to wave off people who tried to touch him.

Megamind gloated. To see Metro Mahn doing a perp walk was just too delicious. It was only when his old rival was seated at the defender's table that he turned and saw the look of distraught longing on Roxanne's face.

"Courage!" he whispered. "Remember your public."

She took a deep breath. "You're right," she said, making an effort to compose herself.

"All rise," said an official voice as the judge entered. The court's normal morning routine followed. The judge asked Wayne's lawyer to confirm that Wayne's plea was still guilty. Then there were opening arguments. Wayne's lawyer argued for the sentence that would allow him to be most effective in setting things right - basically community service. The prosecutor, who looked to be fresh out of law school, emphasized the immensity of the fraud and asked for the harshest penalty the law allowed. _Did they give this newbie the case because they know it's hopeless or was he just the only one in the D.A.'s office who didn't have too much history with Metro Man to prosecute this case dispassionately?_ Then the kid called Wayne up to the witness stand. The former hero was sworn in, identified himself and the questioning began.

"Let's start on the day of the museum opening, with your arrival at the abandoned observatory," the prosecutor began. "When you flew in there, what were your intentions?"

"To rescue Roxanne Ritchi and bring Megamind to justice."

"Nothing more than that?"

"Not at that moment."

"And when did that change?"

"When Roxie asked if she could go home." He glanced her way, then back at the lawyer. "Suddenly I..." His eyes returned to hers as his jaw went slack and his expression turned to one of worry and confusion. He started to rise. "Roxanne," he murmured, and the flames took him.

The crowd rose to its feet, babbling its astonishment. Roxanne, rising with them, burst into tears. _What's wrong with me? This is just what I wanted to happen, a public demonstration that the man I led into the police station was him. Why does it hurt so much? Why do I want to go to him now?_

A bailiff ran forward with a fire extinguisher. Megamind jumped up on his seat. "No, you fool!" he shouted. "Don't use that! There's no telling what the chemicals will do to him in this state!" The bailiff hesitated, looking at the blue hero. "The flames are harmless and they'll be over in a few seconds. There. They're already dying down." Wayne collapsed in the witness chair, unconscious. The judge ordered a recess.

As he stepped down from his perch, Megamind unfastened the spiked leather yoke that held his cape on and shoved it away behind him so that it landed on the seat. He took Roxanne in his arms. All this was as she had instructed him when they were first dating. He had freely admitted that he was probably in the bottom one percent of the adult male population in terms of understanding the feelings and motivations of women, having never known any when he was growing up, and had invited her to train him as she saw fit. This was one of the first things she'd taught him. _When a woman you care about is crying for emotional reasons, the best thing you can do is shut up and hold her. And lose the spikes so she can cry on your shoulder. Once the first outburst is over, you can say something to express sympathy, but at first, just be there._ The blond woman behind them was weeping, too. She gave Roxanne a tissue from her purse. Other citizens gathered around with words of sympathy and pats on the back. It made Megamind nervous, but he was no longer as inclined to panic in crowds as he had once been.


End file.
